The numbers looks pretty solid here all the way through to 1,920x1,200, as in this strategy game you’ll do just fine around 30fps. It even manages to beat a GeForce 8600 GTS here at lower resolution and you really have to crank up the resolution before the Radeon HD 2600 XT takes a beating here.

One problem we encountered was that 4xFSAA didn’t work in Company of Heroes, although this is most likely a driver issue. Hopefully this is something AMD will resolve, although, if CoH takes as much of a performance penalty as the other tests, it might not be worth the effort to enable it.

Finally we have F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R.

avg

max

min

1,024x768

73

152

40

4xFSAA

36

88

12

1,280x1,024

49

102

26

4xFSAA

24

60

7

1,680x1,050

37

76

20

4xFSAA

18

51

6

1,920x1,200

30

61

16

4xFSAA

14

48

5

The results here are nothing short of disappointing, as the Radeon HD 2600 XT takes a real beating here. It is only ahead at 1,024x768, anything higher than that and even the 8600 GT beats it. Still, the game is just about playable at 1,920x1,200, so we can’t complain too much.

Conclusion

So there you have it, our first review of a Radeon HD 2600 XT with GDDR3 memory. Is it worth getting one? Well, it depends on your preferences and how much or how little money you want to spend. It’s not a bad graphics card and although we have yet to take a closer look at the UVD features and HDMI over DVI, this card should prove to be a good mid-price buy. It’s cheaper than a GeForce 8600 GT, although this might not be the case for long and it performs better in most circumstances. Overclock it a little bit and it gets even better, but still not at GeForce 8600 GTS beater, maybe the GDDR4 version can manage this.

We’d also like to thank PowerColor for letting us test this card in their offices and for the time they took to help us get this review done.